1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to marine vessels and watercraft and more particularly to specially designed air flow management apparatus for yachts for mitigating backspray while underway.
2. Description of Related Art
When a large object such as a yacht, truck, or plane moves through air, it creates a region of low-pressure behind the object. The low-pressure region can actually draw air from behind the object into its wake. This can create a reverse flow that moves faster than the object creating low-pressure area, such that the flow reaches the trailing edge of the object's structure.
In the context of large marine vessels and yachts, the low-pressure region that develops behind the superstructure can create swirling turbulent airflow strong enough to carry spray, and water vapor into the cockpit as the vessel travels through the water. This is called “backspray”, and backspray can quickly thoroughly cover and soak the cockpit area of the vessel, as well as any passengers or gear that happens to be in the area. This is a very common and highly undesirable occurrence, requiring routine maintenance and cleaning of both the vessel and equipment.
Current trends in yacht design place a greater premium on standing headroom in staterooms and salon areas. Historically these areas often did not have standing headroom, particularly on smaller yachts ranging up to 50 feet in length. As a result, the hull and superstructure cross-section was not large enough to create a low-pressure region behind the vessels which would generate significant backspray. Modern yacht designs, however, are characterized as having ever increasing lengths, beams, hull sizes, and heights. Modern designs also feature standing headroom on both decks making them exceedingly taller as well. Thus, modern vessel designs have been found to experience considerable backspray problems.
The current state-of-the-art fails to adequately address or combat the problem of backspray on large vessels. Typically yacht designs attempt to offset this problem by reducing the cross-section of the vessel superstructure, which has minimal or no effect, and runs contrary to the trends in yacht designs and places limitations on size.
It is, therefore, to the effective resolution of the aforementioned problems and shortcomings of the prior art that the present invention is directed. However, in view of the marine yacht designs in existence at the time of the present invention, it was not obvious to those persons of ordinary skill in the pertinent art as to how the identified needs could be fulfilled in an advantageous manner.